At my wits end with hair pulling

[spongebrainbigpants]

. . . which is why I'm posting at 1am .

DS1's hair pulling is getting out of hand and it's starting to become so stressful I'm wondering whether staying at home on my own would be preferable to meeting up with my NCT mates. He doesn't do it at nursery, or to any of the kids we meet at toddler group or see on a less regular basis. He just does it to three of our NCT toddlers whom he sees every week and is very familiar with.

None of the other toddlers do it (they are all 21mths) but speaking to my dh tonight he did point out that our little boy is the only one with a sibling (born when DS was 16mths) and we do wonder whether he's doing it for attention.

However, today one of the other mums had my DS2 for most of the afternoon yet DS1 was still pulling hair left right and centre.

I've tried getting cross, ignoring, making a fuss of the other child, removing DS1 from the room, etc, etc. I'm at a loss to know what to do but feel like the shittest mum in the world and wondered whether any of you wise mumsnetters had some foolproof solution to help.

TIA.

bump

Your not alone I promise!
See my thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/935669-Had-the-most-horrible-morning-walked- out-of-mother-and

some great suggestions from other mums. I have found spending at least 10 mins everyday only focuing on playing with DS1 has helped, rewarding him with a small chocolate egg after we have been somewhere and he has not hit, when he does do it saying "if you do that again, we go home" and then leaving if it does happen.

I think your DH is right, the birth of a brother or sister can really turn them upside down

Your not alone I promise!

Hi trying, thank you for responding - would seem it's just you and me with the problem then!

I can't find your thread and the link doesn't work - please could you link again as I would be interested in reading it. Just spent another stressful afternoon extricating my DS from one of his friend's hair so need all the help I can get.

Thank you.

At this age you need to be v close at hand to intervene even before the hand has closed on the hair

So I am afraid that for the short term you will have to forego chatting over coffee and knacker your knees kneeling next to DS

It is a stage and it will pass I promise

I'm totally with you boys (esp after having read the thread about the mother being ostractised cos her DS is playing up) but I'm not chatting over coffee (god, those were the days!), I'm looking after DS2 .

If I'm in the middle of feeding/nappy changing/trying to settle DS2 I just can't get there fast enough. I do try and get the other girls to hold DS2 sometimes so I can hover over DS1 (have been doing that all afternoon), but I can't constantly palm him off so I can be with him. DS2 is very demanding of my time and attention.

Is there nothing I can do to get DS1 to stop it without me constantly intervening?

bump

out-of-mother-and

Is that better spongebrainbigpants?

We had a good day today but sadly when I said to DS1 "nursery today" he said "no pushing" poor thing would have liked him to say "oh painting" or something. He had a great day so I rewarded him with a chocolate egg.

I would take some stickers with you and reward him for not hair pulling.....might be worth trying.

Arrggghh! Just did long post and lost it cos MN crashed!

Did read the thread - well, most of it, it was very long!

I noticed that a lot of the age gaps were much wider than the gap between my two and therefore the older child is more of an age where you can reason/discipline? My DS is too young to say sorry or even understand why he is saying it .

Also, these are v close friends I'm with so I'm not sure what I could do to avoid them - or even if I'd want to, as it would mean me spending a lot of time on my own with two small children, not something that really appeals .

I feel I'm turning into a helicopter parent which is exactly what I didn't want to do, but maybe I'm looking for an answer that doesn't exist?